Revisiting The Secret World

The days of paying monthly for a game have waned on me over the years with the introduction of quality free-to-play and non-monthly MMO games. The trick of it is that even though I don’t obligate myself to pay Riot every month, for example, to play League of Legends, I’ve probably spent more on them then Blizzard ever received. With that in mind, when I read that The Secret World removed the monthly fee requirement, I was very inclined to try it out. After the series of sales they’ve had, I picked up a copy for myself and a couple for friends and family.

For $20 there were some low expectations, and their account management website is a little lackluster to say the least. Once you’ve finally downloaded the 15+ GB game the experience has actually been quite fantastic.

With questing, you have your Story quest, and can pick up one Main quest, one Dungeon quest, and three Side Missions. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but each mission cleverly leads you through “tiers” where you will gain skillups and delve more into the Secret World lore. Just about every mission is voice-acted, and Funcom has managed to get some very talented people to do the voice-overs. In addition, there are different types of missions, so it doesn’t feel like the typical grind of an MMO. You can group with friends or strangers to accomplish any of the missions, and all are replayable except for Story missions. During one particular mission at a carnival I was on Vent with some friends and heard: